This is what happens when Techland goes to the comic book store: we end up discussing what we picked up. This week, Evan Narcisse, Graeme McMillan and Douglas Wolk talk about Fantastic Four #587 and Infestation #1.
DOUGLAS: There are a lot of things I enjoyed about FANTASTIC FOUR #587, the “death of the Human Torch” issue (I’d try to avoid spoilers, but it’s obvious Marvel didn’t care that much about making it a surprise in the first place, so I can’t bring myself to care either). I really like the scenes with Sue and Namor, as melodramatic as they are, and more broadly I thought the tone of crazy adventure that’s gone terribly wrong works nicely–it’s consistent with the whole history of the series, but it also feels like this is the story where a long run of luck runs out. But there are also a few major, systemic problems with this issue.
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One is that Jonathan Hickman basically just pitches us head-first into the story–there’s a bit of text on the recap page, but it’s not particularly clear why any of these characters are where they are, what the situations they’re facing are, and so on. (I’ve actually read bits and pieces of Hickman’s run, and there’s still a lot I wasn’t clear on.) That’s acceptable, if less than optimal, in the context of a typical part five of a six-issue serial. It’s a real problem for an issue like this that a whole lot of people (like me) who don’t normally buy Fantastic Four are going to be picking up: there’s a bunch of what looks like dramatic resolution in this issue, but if I don’t understand its context, all that drama is badly muffled.
The bigger difficulty with what Hickman’s doing here is that the “killing off the long-established superhero” trick stopped working in the ’90s (the last time anyone even sort of got away with it was Superman, whose “death” is explicitly recalled by the black polybag here). Hickman’s been talking in interviews about how of course everyone knows there’s a revolving door to the afterlife in superhero comics, he just hopes it’s an emotionally powerful beat. Well, no: it can’t be, because we already know how it’s going to resolve, and can take a very good guess at when. Fifty years of Fantastic Four + big round number due in just over a year = guess who’s coming back then.
There’s also the problem that the “someone has to stay behind” setup takes some severe plot contortions to establish–and Johnny grabbing Ben and throwing him through the portal is an uncharacteristically weak bit of visual storytelling from Steve Epting for one of the most crucial moments of the story. (It took me a little while to figure out that that was what was happening.)
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GRAEME: Here’s my biggest problem with this issue: For all the hype, no one actually dies. It’s clear that Johnny isn’t dead, if only because – Hi! FF #600 is only a year away – but Hickman doesn’t even try and establish his death here. We’re told that the odds are against him and it’s his “Last Stand,” but what we’re actually given is him about to have a fight, and then the issue ends. More than anything, it reminds me of a plot beat from Syfy’s Stargate Universe series, where a character is similarly abandoned with aliens, only to come back later basically saying “Hey, they’re not such bad guys.” I fully expect the same thing to happen here. There’s a complete lack of… event, perhaps? importance? to the end of the issue. It’s underplayed and melodramatic all at once, and incredibly unsatisfying to me as a reader. It’s as if Hickman is so sure that his audience knows that Johnny will be back – although I’m fairly sure he’ll return as “Jonathan Storm” or “John Storm,” to denote a new maturity and ensure that this issue WAS the last stand of “Johnny” – that he didn’t really try to make it convincing in the slightest.
DOUGLAS: I suspect you’re right about the new name–Ben calling him “John” at the end was probably the tipoff for that. Hickman does love his foreshadowing.
GRAEME: I’m not sure if this would be such a problem if Marvel had not gone above and beyond to hype the event as the DEATH of one of the FF. If the story had happened without all the clamor and early release and the AP running the story because it was a slow news day, I have the feeling I would’ve felt more charitable towards the whole thing. So am I uncomfortable because of the story itself, or because the hype made me expect something that the story wasn’t? I’m not sure, and I’m also not sure if it really matters, in the end.
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That aside, this issue again reminded me that I just don’t get Hickman’s FF. I know that it has a lot of critical praise and people I respect really admire it, but it just doesn’t come together for me. Characters seem less fully formed than Hickman’s pawns or mouthpieces (Valeria, in particular, isn’t even vaguely convincing, even as a supersmart kid), and the mechanics of structuring the story and pacing it well just never seem to be there. Like you said, Douglas, this just dumps the reader in the middle of three emergencies, and none of them are properly introduced in this issue, making all of them feel a little fake… something that’s not helped by the overfamiliarity of some of the plot mechanics required to solve the problems in question. (How many times have we seen a “We have to close the portal… from inside” announcement?) It all feels very… well-intentioned, and almost great, but falling short, if that makes sense.
EVAN: Maybe I was duped by Marvel’s machinations, but I bought the two issues preceding #587, because I too fell away from Hickman’s run early on. And I have to say that #587 works if you’ve been reading the storyline. Yet my bit of catch-up only confirms what you guys say: new readers get dropped in the middle of freefall.
Still, I found a lot to like here. Most of it, however, was away from the big plot beats. Hickman’s characterizations felt nicely modulated: the super-kids weren’t too cutesy, the Ben/Johnny relationship breathes like a longtime friendship and the sexual tension between Sue and Namor gave those scenes some zing. All that made the ending feel way too engineered, with its swell of emotion and Spock/Kirk hand-touching-through-glass riff. I’ve read some of Hickman’s early Image work, and his sense of design meshed with some ambitious ideas to good effect in stuff like The Nightly News and Transhuman. The ideas still bubble invitingly in his FF, but this issue in particular seems to sacrifice the invention in service to a by-the-numbers stunt. If this were just another issue of Fantastic Four, I’d be along for the ride with maybe a few reservations. It’s like Graeme says: I like the issue except for what it’s actually supposed to do.
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DOUGLAS: Onward to Infestation #1. It’s not as if I expected brilliance from this particular comic book–the first part of IDW’s big quasi-crossover involving four of its licensed properties (those being G.I. Joe, Transformers, Star Trek and Ghostbusters). But Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are often very clever writers, and they’re used to juggling big casts and lots of spinoff projects (as with their “War of Kings”/”Realm of Kings” serials with Marvel’s cosmic titles), so I thought it might be fun.
Instead, they’ve come up with what might be the dullest possible premise for a crossover in 2011: evil zombies attack, and are scattered to four different realities, so everybody gets to spend a couple of issues shooting zombies. The one real flash of D-n-A’s wit here is that the zombies are an information-devouring hive-mind (and can therefore, for some reason, turn robots into zombies too). It’s kind of cute that this issue also brings in characters from both CVO and Zombies Vs. Robots, although I don’t think anyone was itching for a crossover involving them.
But the story has no real tone of its own, and the two-page excerpts from the four franchises’ individual “Infestation” stories that appear at the back of this thing make all of them look like generic “let’s shoot some zombies until we run out of pages” stuff. I’m guessing we’re not going to get to see the crossover series’ characters interact with each other, either. Bummer.
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GRAEME: See, this is where I clearly have far lower tastes, because I really enjoyed this issue. It’s completely dumb, it doesn’t try and do anything new or original, and I kind of love it all the more for that: It’s a “zombies cause trouble in a sci-fi world” story, and that’s all I really wanted it to be. I was sad that we didn’t really get to see more crossover between the various universes – or even appearances, beyond the previews in the back – but I found myself more involved in the story (if not exactly rooting for the good guys as much as “I wonder how horribly all of them are going to die… It is the set-up issue, so they all have to fail somehow, after all) than I’d expected, and the McGuffin was cute enough to make me not hate the flimsiness of the crossover premise. Maybe I was just ready for something this gleefully stupid, and because it was an opener rather than a final chapter, more ready to forgive the lack of plot and/or weight?
Part of the charm for me is the art, I have to admit: I’ve really, really liked David Messina’s work elsewhere in the IDW line over the last few years (he’s done a lot of their Star Trek books, and some Angel ones, too, I think), and I’m surprised DC or Marvel haven’t grabbed him yet. His stuff is clear and attractive and just cartoony enough to appeal to mainstream fans, if y’ask me. He’s one of the selling points of this book, and I’m sad that he won’t be doing all of the crossover issues.
Hmm. Feeling disappointed by Fantastic Four and loving Infestation. I think people may be wondering where my critical faculties went this week.
DOUGLAS: Graeme, you ignorant slut, etc.
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EVAN: I’d’ve rather have had less set-up and more crossover in this first issue. If you give me a cover with Snake Eyes, Spock, Optimus Prime and a guy who’s supposed to be Bill Murray all facing off against zombies, then zombies need to be getting sliced, phasered, stomped and quipped against. I really felt like this book was trying to sell me on the coolness of the CVO title, which I neither needed nor cared about. Also, sooooo much time was spent on setting up the McGuffin that I resented parts of the story that I otherwise would’ve had fun with. I mean, I know it’s cheese. Just give me the cheese. Don’t tell me where the cows were raised, what they were fed and how long it was aged for. Just give me the cheese. Too much explaining leads me to roll my eyes at scenes where robots become zombies. All the buttressing of the concept inside the text makes the whole affair feel insecure. “I am the Gateway and the Opener of Paths. I am of two worlds and therefore of all worlds. I take the Eternal Hunger where it needs to go.” Really? All of that? It’s a lot of pedaling to barely get to the front porch of where I wanted the story to start.